ST2000DL003 (Seagate Barracuda LP Green 2000GB) suddenly ceases

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I have no idea whether this is now known here, but it seems that during February and March, many ST2000DL003 (Seagate Barracuda LP Green 2000GB) drives have failed for users all over the world. Mine died a few days ago (2 days after purchase), so I tried connecting to its monitor to see what happens (and maybe try the N1/m0,2,2... fix), so here's what I've found out:

The dead drive is:

ST2000DL003

P/N: 9VT166-301

F/W: CC32 (NOTE: I've seen reports of this failure w/ CC31, too)

DATE: 11311

SITE: SU

Kind of failure: Without a previous hint of problem, the drive suddenly ceases to talk to the controller (i. e., it cannot be detected by the BIOS when the machine is starting up). The sound of the spinning up is perfectly all right.

I managed to connect to the disk's serial interface, and this is the diagnostic output it gives upon power-up. Hopefully someone qualified can step up and tell us what it actually is that the ST2000DL003s are choking on.

(P) SATA Reset

SIM Error 1009

RW Error 00000080

User Data Base 00990DE8

MCMainPOR: Start:

Check MCMT Version: Current

MCMainPOR: Non-Init Case

MC Seg Disc and Cache Nodes: 4011982C 4011793C

Seg Write Preamble VBM start: 000010A7 end: 000010CE

Footer - start: 000010D0 end: 000010F7

Seg Read Preamble VBM - start: 000010F9 end: 00001120

Footer - start: 00001122 end: 00001149

Reconstruction: MCMT Reconstruction Start

Max number of MC segments 22E0

Nonvolatile MCMT sequence number 000070B0

[RSRS] 0EBA

Reconstruction: EXCEPTION: Segment Overall Sequence Number Mismatch

00004221 00000000 A

Recon Last Chance Header ID FFFFFFFF SeqNum FFFFFFFF Current

Segment, Head

Rst 0x40M

MC Internal LPC Process

LED:000000BD FAddr:00005652

Apparently the firmware is running into an assertion failure based on something it reads from the platters when starting up.

The bad news is there's no way to fix this using the "seagate fix" described all over the various Internet boards (that is, issuing commands N1 to reset the SMART log and m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 to re-format the user partition), because one never gets to the monitors prompt (ctrl-z won't work after the firmware has stumbled upon the exception). Insulating the contacts to either the motor or the heads (or both) doesn't help in this regard, because Seagate, as it seems, has crippled the electronics on these new drives by making the monitor (and presumably everything else) dependent on something that first has to be read from the platters. In other words, while older disks would communicate on the serial monitor even with the PCB totally disconnected from the motor and the heads, these new drives don't even start to log anything into the monitor until after they've spinned up and read a couple sectors from the platters. I tried taking the electronics off from several drives I have lying around (7200.9, 7200.10, 7200.11 and also one 2.5-inch drive), and this new drive is the only one that needs to read something from the platters before starting the serial monitor. I can't resist commenting on this observation... It simply seems that Seagate has made a pretty bad [cost cutting?] decision here.

Also, if you want to try to connect to a dead ST2000DL003's monitor yourself, note that:

- this new drive needs 5V to send/receive on the TX/RX lines (as opposed to 3.3V with all the older drives),

- while some older drives would communicate at 9600 bps, the ST2000DL003 communicates at 38400 bps,

- using a PCB from another, completely healthy disk doesn't help, because although the PCB will be able to spin up the drive, it won't then be able to read the initial couple of sectors (perhaps because of some platters-specific calibration data stored in the 512K Winbond flash?) and thus start the monitor.

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If you disconnect the PCB from the heads and the motor without first spinning the drive down,

you will kill the drive completely - we don't exactly understand why, but it has happened, so we know.

Yep, this is more or less expected, that way you stop the spinning while the heads are still reading, I was thinking about disconnecting it from the heads BUT NOT from the motor, but sure it would be anyway risky.

I'll keep an eye to see if anyone comes out with a solution....

Can you check the SMART (what I personally call "DUMB" ) status as in here?:

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I'm using Win Vista and had it connected as an external drive via a USB connection.

Worked great for about a month and then disappeared. Spins just fine when you start it up, just isn't found by the BIOS. It still shows up in Device Manager, but no where else. It locks up Windows Explorer if I browse to it, it also locks up Disk Management in Computer Management. I tried booting from a couple different Linux Live CDs and a DOSBoot Recovery disk, but none of them could get it to load either.

Looks like there are a bunch of other people getting this problem now too, here's a thread about it at the Seagate Forums:

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hey all i just recently posted a thread for my seagate drive. i was wondering if u could take a look at it, i think i may be having the same problem as listed above. can somone please verify this theory?

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hey all i just recently posted a thread for my seagate drive. i was wondering if u could take a look at it, i think i may be having the same problem as listed above. can somone please verify this theory?

There is NO theory.

You ALREADY posted, this is "your" thread:

The present thread has NOTHING to do with your issue.

You DO NOT need (and are kindly invited NOT to ) make multiple posts about your issue.

jaclaz

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While searching Google for a possible solution I came across this website stating the following:

HI EVERYBODY

I HAVE FIXED THIS 2TB LP SEAGATE DRIVE.YOU DONT NEED TO SCARED JUST FIND OUT THOSE TWO PINS TO SHORT.SHORT IT FOR A WHILE AND YOU WILL GET READY IN STATUS BAR.THAN JUST POWER DOWN AND POWER ON YOU WILL GET YOUR DRIVE BACKI AM STILL USING THIS DRIVE.DONT WORRY WHEN YOU HEARD SOME TYPICAL SOUND WHEN YOU SHORTING THESE PINS.ITS A PART OF THIS PROCESS.

HERE I HAVE ATTACHED ANOTHER JPG WITH CIRCLE ON POINT TO BE SHORTED ALL THE BEST. I HAVE WRITTEN WHAT I HAVE DONE.AND I GET SUCCESS EVEN JUST BEFORE THIS POST I HAVE APPLIED ON ANOTHER SAME DRIVE.SIMPTOMS HDD BECOMES INITIALIZED NO NOISE SMOOTH SPINING AND LOG FILE YOU ALL HAVE.THE PROBLEM START WITH YOU PEOPLE APPILED V4 V1 ANm format you will get this errror.So all the best to all and enjoy and share your success with others .

I do have an account on this forum but I can't access the jpg he's talking about. Does anybody know more about this? The two pins you need to short, is this known from a previous Seagate fix? Also, the 'V4 V1 ANm format', anybody knows what this means? Or anybody here with an account on the Salvation Data forum who can download the attachment he's talking about?

I HAVE FIXED THIS 2TB LP SEAGATE DRIVE.YOU DONT NEED TO SCARED JUST FIND OUT THOSE TWO PINS TO SHORT.SHORT IT FOR A WHILE AND YOU WILL GET READY IN STATUS BAR.THAN JUST POWER DOWN AND POWER ON YOU WILL GET YOUR DRIVE BACK .I AM STILL USING THIS DRIVE.DONT WORRY WHEN YOU HEARD SOME TYPICAL SOUND WHEN YOU SHORTING THESE PINS.ITS A PART OF THIS PROCESS.

KIND ATTN:PLS REFER THIS PIC GIVEN BELOW IF YOU HAVE SAME DIAG ERROR AS PEOPLE SHOWN HERE IN TERMINAL LOG.

THE PEOPLE WHO HAS NEW HARD DRIVE AND FIRST TIME PROBLEM OF NOT DETECTING BY BIOS OR BUSY IN TERMINAL OR DOING NO TERMINAL JOB SHOULD FOLLOW ONLY OLDER 7200.11 SYSTEM.PLACE ONE VISITING CARD JUST UNDER CONNECTION OF HEAD CONNECTOR WHICH CONNECTED TO PCB AND THAN GO TO TERMINAL /2

F32>Z

spin down

NOW REMOVE THE VISITING CARD AND TIGHT THE SCREWS THAN,

F32>U

SPIN UP

CTRL+Z

F3T>i4,1,22

clear g-list

F3T>/1

F31>N1

smart cleared

just power down

power on

you can see your hdd is back with all data

DONT GIVE m0,2,2,,,,,22 m,6,2,,,,,22 OR ANY SAME

ALL THE TERMINAL LOG AS YOU CAN SEE REGARDING "No HOST FIS-ReadyStatusFlags 0002A1E1" THIS IN THIS POST ARE VICTIM OF THIS M-FORMAT COMMAND AS PER MY KNOWLEDGE EVEN I HAVE MADE SAME MISTAKE.

HERE I HAVE ATTACHED ANOTHER JPG WITH CIRCLE ON POINT TO BE SHORTED ALL THE BEST. I HAVE WRITTEN WHAT I HAVE DONE.AND I GET SUCCESS EVEN JUST BEFORE THIS POST I HAVE APPLIED ON ANOTHER SAME DRIVE.SIMPTOMS HDD BECOMES INITIALIZED NO NOISE SMOOTH SPINING AND LOG FILE YOU ALL HAVE.THE PROBLEM START WITH YOU PEOPLE APPILED V4 V1 ANm format you will get this errror.So all the best to all and enjoy and share your success with others .

jaclaz

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This method seems to be very promising. I have one of these drives and I tried shorting it at the points shown above and then tried connecting it as an external hard drive. My computer can now see the drive and it's contents but the access is extremely slow. I did not do the terminal commands yet as I had to order the hardware to do so and haven't received it yet. I'm assuming that after I do the terminal commands it should fix the slow access issue. I'll report back once I receive the hardware and attempt the terminal commands, but I'm pretty confident it will work.

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How long did you short the pins? Either I'm having a different problem with my drive or I'm doing it wrong (or not long enough). I also can't get into terminal mode, no matter what I'm trying. I have read everything the various read me's are saying..

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I have the same problem with a SEAGATE Barracuda LP Green 2000GB with the next specs:

Model: ST2000DL003

P/N (Part Number): 9VT166-301

F/W (Firmware): CC32

Date: 12286

Site: WU

DOM (Date of manufacture): 01/2012

PCB (Printed Circuit Board): 100617465 REV B

XP SP3 has been working in it perfectly for 3 months since I bought it and then it went off and appeared when starting again "Disk boot failure: insert system disk..." message. Whilst sound of spinning is OK (it seems even like engaging the platters correctly) it is not detected in BIOS nor in Disk Management, connected to an external USB case or elsewhere. Changing PCB with another exactly the same is useless, so I´d like to do the hyperterminal stuff if possible to recover the disk and the valuable data it contains. I have read that in 7200.11 models there is a standard procedure which implies short circuiting some pins and entering commands in hyperterminal from another computer an a serial-ttl device which works with 3,3 V tensions, but for other mothels (like 7200.12 1,5 TB I think) there is no need to short anything but only to enter (other) certain commands. For this Model ST2000DL003 2 TB I have read the briefly explained process with hyperterminal commands posted by jaclaz and apparently working (although with slow data access) for Seuss1. I´d like to know from these or others if the method really works, and a more step by step description of it with pics of the full process. If there is no solution by now, I´d like to know too, for viniikala in the first message says the hyperterminal can´t access this specific model of hard disk, and that the communication through TX/RX lines must be done with 5 V instead of 3,3 V (with a usb-ttl instead of a serial-ttl I guess). Please someone who´s been successful answer with the solution, a lot of us in the ditch now will be so thankful, and for all of you who´re reading this because you´ve happened to be in my case, I can only say: don´t throw away the disk and have faith, and above all: Have a good day.

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I have read that in 7200.11 models there is a standard procedure which implies short circuiting some pins and entering commands in hyperterminal from another computer an a serial-ttl device which works with 3,3 V tensions, but for other mothels (like 7200.12 1,5 TB I think) there is no need to short anything but only to enter (other) certain commands. For this Model ST2000DL003 2 TB I have read the briefly explained process with hyperterminal commands posted by jaclaz and apparently working (although with slow data access) for Seuss1. I´d like to know from these or others if the method really works, and a more step by step description of it with pics of the full process. If there is no solution by now, I´d like to know too, for viniikala in the first message says the hyperterminal can´t access this specific model of hard disk, and that the communication through TX/RX lines must be done with 5 V instead of 3,3 V (with a usb-ttl instead of a serial-ttl I guess). Please someone who´s been successful answer with the solution, a lot of us in the ditch now will be so thankful, and for all of you who´re reading this because you´ve happened to be in my case, I can only say: don´t throw away the disk and have faith, and above all: Have a good day.

(hopefully) some answers.

The 7200.11 needs NO shorting.

The 7200.11 ES/2 NEEDS the shorting.

The 7200.x LP also seemingly needs the shorting.

I don't think that 5 V level TTL is needed since 3.3V is normally compatible with 5V (while 5 V is not compatible with 3.3V), I know it sounds "strange", but see this, read, several times if needed, the whole read-me-first: